Her Chosen Protector: Navy SEAL Romance (Night Storm Book 3)
Page 7
“Torres, is that all your man told you?”
“No, there is more. The good news is that we are the tallest building for blocks, but there are snipers on other nearby low buildings that are targeting our courtyard. We don’t have anyone there for the time being, but one of the safety precautions when this building was built, is that there is at least a six-foot perimeter between the building and the gate.”
“We have the specs, Angelo. But even with the six feet, there are some angles that are going to be almost impossible for Maduro’s men to get off a shot, aren’t there?” Leo asked.
Asher nodded. Leo was seeing things exactly right as they looked at the blueprints up on Rafa’s screen. Especially at the corners—there wasn’t a chance in hell that Maduro’s snipers could make that shot.
“You’re right,” Torres finally spoke up. “I need to get up on our roof and check things out myself. Then I’ll be able to give you positions of the jeeps and snipers.”
“That would be perfect. How soon do you think you could have that for us? Can you draw us a map?” Asher asked.
As Torres started to answer, there was an incoming call. It was a US area code he didn’t recognize. He held it up to Kane.
“Montana,” he mouthed.
Jackpot!
“Carlson, we have an urgent call from one of our contacts that we have to take. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
“But—”
“Later,” Asher said as he hung up on the man.
Asher watched as Kane walked over to brief Max, Ezio, Nic, and Raiden on the information that Torres had provided. They were going to need that to figure out if there was any way to debilitate or sabotage the jeeps and snipers.
He switched over to the other line.
“Hello?”
“This is Eden York. Asher, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank God, the code word worked. I guess Rafa is with you.”
“Yes! How’s Aunt Suzanne? Is she okay?” Rafa interjected. He was clearly upset.
“She’s going to be just fine.” Her voice was low and calm for the young man.
“Are you telling me the truth, or just what you want me to hear?”
“I wouldn’t do that to you. Your aunt has put her trust in you, Rafa, and she has told me that you have a good head on your shoulders and that you’re going to be helping the Americans get in here and rescue us.”
Asher watched as the kid preened. Damn, she’s good at this.
“Can I talk to her?” Rafa asked.
“I’m talking in the women’s bathroom. It’s the only place I could think of that Carlson and Becker wouldn’t be able to hear me. But I’m worried that Dr. Nilsson might be in on this, too. I don’t know who we can trust at this point.”
“Becker? You think that Becker might be a mole for Maduro?” Asher asked. That changed everything. If they had two potential bad guys, they were in a world of hurt.
“Suzanne slipped me some notes while the men were occupied. She said that Becker was doing some hinky things with his investments. It looked like he might be busy feathering his nest with money from Maduro.”
“Asshole,” Asher breathed.
“What are you talking about?” Cullen said over his shoulder. “That’s one twisted asshole. You’re telling me one of the guys who is supposed to be doing good in the world is actually helping to steal from starving people? There is a special place in hell for that type of motherfucker.”
“You got that right,” Eden said with feeling. Asher cracked a smile. She’s a bloodthirsty little thing. He liked it. “But,” she started, “so far, we only have a theory. Suzanne needs to wake up and fill us in more on what she saw and heard. It would be great if someone could follow that bastard’s money. That is not my forte.”
“But you work for the International Money Fund, aren’t you some kind of accounting genius?” Cullen asked.
“She’s a translator,” Asher answered. “She’s a genius in languages. According to her file, she speaks six different ones fluently.”
“Seven,” Eden said. “But who’s counting? Look, the other problem we have is Carlson. Suzanne didn’t explain why she didn’t trust him, just that she didn’t. I figure it had to do with his boss leaving us high and dry as he flew off to Aruba. What a pissant.” Her voice dripped with disgust.
“Yeah, the entire Special Operations Forces community has gone batshit crazy over the Nomad situation. They can’t believe that Bradshaw left you hanging like that. Everybody wants to know if the entire Nomad team in Venezuela has been compromised.”
“The Señora only mentioned Carlson, but if he’s under the microscope, I have to assume Patel could be rogue, too,” Eden agreed.
“Lyons, quit with the bullshit and get over here. We need to talk about the intel that Kane just shared,” Max called from across the room.
Cullen rubbed his hands in anticipation and double-timed it over to the small group. Asher turned his attention back to Eden. “You’re right to be wary of Patel. We have someone doing checks on both of them. Now that you gave us Becker’s name, he’ll follow the money.”
“I don’t see how. He’s a banker, for God’s sake. If anybody can hide money, it’s him.”
“You don’t know Kane. Trust me, we’ll know.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Asher laughed. “Have trust issues much?”
Leo snorted.
“No, I trust my family implicitly. Anyone else? It takes a little bit more than a minute.”
Asher winced.
“Is this going to be a problem with you helping us?” he finally asked.
“Nope. I see you as our best shot out of here. I’d have to be an idiot not to help in our rescue. With that said, don’t think I’m just going to follow orders blindly. You better give me a good reason if something seems stupid.”
Leo rolled his eyes.
“That’s not going to be a problem, Eden. We’re going to have damn good reasons for everything we ask you to do. First thing? Put your phone on vibrate. Second, do you have someplace you can conceal it on your person?”
“Yes, and yes.”
“Third, check your settings, make sure that when you get a text, it only vibrates once. This will be the way we will communicate back and forth. One vibration means you have ten minutes to get back to us. Two immediate vibrations in a row means drop everything and find a way to get us on the phone. Three immediate vibrations in a row means you have one minute to duck and cover.”
“And in one of our many tête-à-têtes, will you have appraised me of the duck and cover potential?” He heard laughter in her voice.
His lip twitched. “If all goes to plan, then yes.”
“So, there is a plan?”
“One is beginning to take shape.”
“That’s what my brothers used to say when they were flying by the seat of their pants,” Eden sighed. “But they always came out alive, so that’s something.”
“Count on it.”
He could hear two female voices who must have just entered the bathroom. Eden hung up the phone.
Chapter 7
Her hands were sweaty. Not clammy. Actually sweaty. And her blouse was getting sticky because she’d been wearing it since yesterday morning, and now it was almost four o’clock Friday afternoon.
She rubbed them against her skirt and cursed Asher Thorne. It had been five hours since she’d first talked privately with Asher, and on the last phone call, he’d told her their plan. It was worse than anything her dumbass brothers had come up with in their wild, drunken, teenage years in the wilds of Montana. They were going to have to be smarter, better, and really, really lucky to pull this off.
Since her phone was stuck deep in her underwire bra, she glanced over at Carlson’s phone. It was thirteen minutes to the top of the hour. Señora Azua’s executive office was on the opposite side of the huge open bank area. As soon as the explosions started, she w
Eden’s head swiveled away from Carlson’s phone to look at Suzanne’s pale face. Despite the intermittent ice packs, Eden hadn’t seen a discernable reduction of the swelling on her neck. She needed to be seen by a doctor, not some wanna-be-veterinarian. Eden had been giving her slow sips of water to ease the pain in her throat, and now it was time for her to pee, whether she needed to or not. The fact that the woman’s bathroom was next to the stairway was just a happy coincidence.
She leaned over and put her ear near the woman’s face.
“You need to use the restroom?” Eden queried. “Yeah, we can arrange that.”
Suzanne’s eyes fluttered open, but the woman looked at her with keen intelligence.
“Help me up,” she whispered.
“Leland?” Eden turned to the man to see that he was already standing up.
“I’ll help.” All of his attention was focused on Suzanne.
“When the hell are those damn frogmen going to let us know what the hell is going on?” Carlson groused. He punched repeat on his phone again, trying to get Asher or anybody else on the team to answer. Eden knew it was useless, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him.
“Leland, she needs to walk a little bit. She’s not going to want you to sit her on the toilet,” Eden whispered when he went to pick Suzanne up.
“Then she can stand up when we reach the bathroom door,” he said grimly.
Eden’s lip twitched. The man reminded her of her dad. What the hell, when all hell broke loose, he could carry Suzanne downstairs. That would be much better than trying to help her down the stairs on her own.
She looked over at Carlson’s phone. Eleven minutes.
Asher looked down at his watch. It was seventeen hours since they’d landed in Venezuela, and he was about to execute one of the most bizarre plans known to mankind, let alone a special operations force.
He just thanked God it didn’t include a fucking clown car. He was sure it would have, except it was too small. No, instead, he was stuck with feathers, crepe paper, a giant dragon head, and a metric shit ton of green sateen with gold trim. He worked through the giant cut-out that they’d made in the neck of the dragon so he could work.
Turned out Ezio’s grandma was addicted to Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. As a result, Ezio knew as much about that parade as Cullen knew about Mardi Gras. Between those two things, they came up with the idea on how to hide the explosions that Asher was going to make as he blew out a hole in the back wall. They were like two tweenyboppers talking about the hot boy at school as they figured out how they needed to steal a float and butt it up against the back gate and have Asher hide underneath it.
Then Rafa got into the game, and it became teenager central. Rafa of course knew somebody who knew somebody. Before Asher knew it, they were going to a run-down garage in the back of an auto body shop where a bunch of university students had a float they were willing to sell. All they wanted were a couple of iPhones that Rafa was able to scrape together from another deal that he cut.
Cullen was loving every moment of it. Ezio played his part, too. The girls didn’t recognize one uniform from another, and Ezio was able to get the couple of University girls to swoon over his good looks, which helped the deal to go down easier for Rafa.
All three of them were crazy. Certifiable. Nuts. But they made it happen.
Now here Asher was, sweating like a dyslexic at countdown. The night was hot and humid as fuck. Add in the body armor, being wrapped in neon green material that didn’t breathe, and then like a turd cherry on top, there was the paper mâché dragon’s head that hovered over his head.
“You doing okay?” Ezio asked from behind him.
“Dandy.”
“Come on, haven’t you ever wanted to be in a parade?”
“No.” Asher concentrated on applying the C-4 charges to the exact right pressure points on the steel gate.
Damn, it’s hot.
He would have preferred doing this alone. If something went wrong, he’d like to be the only casualty—not that he intended anything to go wrong. He was damn good at this. But still, it pissed him off that Ezio was anywhere near the charges. But someone needed to help push the float along. Why did this have to be some half-assed parade float that needed two people inside it to get it moving?
Just one more. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes and adjusted the charge. Dammit, he blinked and realized he needed to pull out the fuse and reposition it. Finally, it was right. He blew out a long breath and checked his watch. Adjusting the timer to make sure it coordinated with the time he had supplied Eden, Asher then turned to handle the next bit of fun.
He looked around the inside of the parade float. It wasn’t the sturdiest thing he’d ever seen, but since the charges were set up at the weak spots, they didn’t need as much C-4 as they would other places. The float would be toast when the charges blew, but hopefully, people would just think it was a pyrotechnic display gone wrong.
A dragon. Asher shook his head. And he had thought the damn Eurovision Song Contest was the craziest mission.
“Let’s move,” Asher said as he pulled at Ezio’s sleeve. Ezio immediately understood and moved.
As soon as they crawled out from beneath the green monstrosity, Asher took a deep breath, then looked up at the tall gate of the bank. He grinned as he saw the food truck thirty meters away. There were Rafa and two of the university girls he’d recruited giving away free plantains and empanadas, keeping civilians away from the blast site. Cullen really was a devious bastard, and Rafa fit right in. Free food was brilliant.
Meanwhile, he and Ezio slid over to where Raiden and Nic were waiting in a covered truck that they had procured. “Two minutes,” Asher informed them. “Then I’m going in.”
Raiden nodded.
“Max and Kane? Have we heard from them?” Asher asked.
“Not yet. But you know they want to be thorough,” Raiden answered.
“Does Kane really think he can block any kind of communication between Maduro and his men?”
Raiden shrugged. Nic looked over at him and frowned. “He can do it, can’t he?”
“If he thinks he can, he probably can. Problem is that some of the people he normally relies on to help him are out of the game. He hasn’t been his happy-go-lucky self lately.”
Raiden had that right. First, there were the two he trusted from the US Intelligence community who had quit and retired, and then to find out that the lieutenant of Midnight Delta still had his computer expert under lock and key, was pissing Kane off.
Asher looked at his watch. One and thirty seconds. He took out his satellite phone, and at precisely one minute before the charges were to blow, he quickly texted Eden three times.
Leland was looking pissed. “Why haven’t you moved everyone to the basement? Why are you doing this and not Carlson? What in the hell is going on?” he demanded to know.
“I did this as a precaution only. Nobody else needed to be moved, because they’re all able-bodied.” Eden said as she watched the big man gently set Suzanne down in one of the few chairs in one of the four sectioned-off rooms that all faced the vault.
She felt the buzz, just one. “We have one minute. Because they’re blowing open the gate, we’re not supposed to feel anything, but Asher said, just in case, we should take cover. This is the best cover I could think of for the Señora.”
This time Leland didn’t ask any questions. He just grabbed the arms of the chair that Suzanne was sitting in and leaned his body over hers. When the muffled pop came, it was negligible.
Yay, score one for the good guys.
“So, Eden, now explain to me why you’re the point of contact. I’m eager to know.” She grinned at his thinly veiled sarcasm.
“Well, Leland,” she countered, using his given name for the first time. “Why don’t you ask Suzanne?”
“Yes, why don’t you?” the woman rasped up at him.
“I really don’t care which one of you explains it to me, as long as you do it fast,” he said switching to Spanish.
“Eden has confirmed with the Americans that the entire Nomad Security team is under a cloud of suspicion. Are they in bed with Maduro or not?”
He sighed. “Yeah, I haven’t said much to either Patel or Carlson ever since their boss absconded to Aruba.”
Suzanne pushed against the arms of the chair so she could sit up straighter and Leland helped her. She gave him a grateful, yet regal smile of thanks.
“Actually, it gets worse,” Suzanne said. Then she started to cough.
“Let me talk. You rest your throat.” Eden turned to Leland. “We now have reason to believe that Becker could possibly be working for Maduro as well. Right now, there is a computer expert with the SEALs who is trying to follow the money.”
“Why in the hell didn’t you tell me this? For God’s sake Suzanne, I have forensic accountants coming out my ass. I could have been working on this since the moment you had suspicions.”
The woman sat up straighter, her eyes blazing fire. “I own a bank. Like I don’t.” She shoved a finger at his chest as her voice came out in a choked whisper.
“Save your voice, Woman.”
As interesting as the byplay was, Eden’s breasts buzzed once, and that took her attention away from them.
“Gotta make a call. And I’ll tell you what, Leland, I’ll let you listen in.”
“Mighty nice of you.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you,” she said with a half-smile.
“Uh-huh, why don’t you tell me something I care about?”
Suzanne let out a wheeze of laughter. Both Eden and Leland admonished her to be careful at the same time.
“I’m fine,” the Señora assured them. “Make the call, Eden.”
Eden turned away from Leland as she unbuttoned the top buttons of her cream silk blouse and fished out her phone from her underwire bra. She set the phone on the arm of Suzanne’s chair and pressed in the number for Asher’s phone.
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